Composers in Western styles

Although graduates of the Tokyo School of Music and modernized court musicians were involved in many of the first concerts and compositions in Western classical music, the major Japanese forces in this direction came from young men who studied in Europe. The most famous surviving composition of this era is Kojo no tsuki (The Ruined Castle), written in 1901 by Taki Rentarō after his training in Germany. The first line, shown in notation XV, reveals, with its use of E or E♯, a conflict between the Western minor and the Japanese in scales. In its piano-accompanied version it recalls the style of Franz Schubert, but as sung in the streets it sounds Japanese. Yamada Kōsaku was training in Germany when the Meiji era ended (1912) and returned to Japan with a new name, Koscak, and a strong interest in the founding of opera companies and symphony orchestras, as well as in the teaching of Western music. His opera, Kurobune (1940; The Black Ships), deals with the opening of Japan to the West and reflects his knowledge of Wagnerian style. Attempts at nationalistic operas can be represented better by the work Yuzuru (1952; Twilight Crane) by Ikuma Dan. The plot is a Japanese folktale, and, although the musical style is a mixture of the music of Maurice Ravel and the late works of Giacomo Puccini, one finds as well deliberate uses of folk songs and idioms. Shimizu Osamu is perhaps more successful nationalistically in his choral settings of Japanese and Ainu music, in which the style of vocal production and chordal references seems to be a more honest abstraction of Japanese ideals. Mamiya Michio combined traditional timbres with 12-tone compositional technique in a koto quartet. Mayuzumi Toshirō has produced many clever eclectic results in such works as his Nirvana Symphony (1958); Buddhist sutra texts mix with a combination of choral writing in the style of Igor Stravinsky, orchestral tone clusters, and sweeping vocal lines derived from Japanese Buddhist chant style.

It has often been felt that no true combination of Japanese and Western music would be possible until there was some composer who was equally knowledgeable in both Western and Japanese traditional styles. Such a musical, aesthetic barricade seemed unbroken until the last third of the 20th century, when international music styles made culturally transcendental eclecticism a viable medium for those composers with enough talent and insight to control the infinite idioms available to them. In Japan, Takemitsu Tōru seemed a likely candidate for such an accolade. His music was totally contemporary and never directly “orientale,” yet some of his timing, texture, and structure were characteristically Japanese.

In modern Japan all styles of music are available, from the traditional to the most avant-garde. Fully professional performances of Kabuki music are matched by complete Beethoven symphonic series. Huge choruses singing polemics of every type and mass bands of children bowing violins in the widely imitated method of instruction developed by Shinichi Suzuki compete for audiences with intimate recitals of Heike biwa music and hundreds of other events. Research in Japanese traditional music has flourished among native scholars as well as among an increasing number of foreign devotees; and national, private, and academic organizations have been founded for the collection, study, and publication of material dealing with all aspects of Japanese musical life.

From the outline of Japanese musical culture given above, it should be evident that old traditions can still be heard along with the newer ones. For the most part, the older forms probably do not sound the same today as they did in their heyday. Such changes in traditions are inevitable, however, and are common to music in most other world cultures, including the Western. For example, present-day gagaku performances are undoubtedly different from those of 1,000 years ago, but Mozart symphonies as well do not sound the same as they did in the 18th century. Now modern technology has made it possible to “freeze” a given performance of some musical event through a recording. Each musician in each generation may choose as he desires to add fresh flavour to such earlier items or leave them “pure.” Part of the charm and fascination of Japanese music is that it still offers so many stylistic listening and studying choices to anyone curious or energetic enough to want to know them better. A major point of this entire discussion is that none of the various styles of Japanese music is any more mystical or incomprehensible than is Bach or Beethoven. Each tradition is simply different. All of them are also logical and—perhaps of greater importance—they are beautiful to those who learn their special forms of musical language.

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